BTC-e Suspends Withdrawals to Stop Stolen Coin Dump

Update: BTC-e admins have reached out to Coin Fire to state that withdrawals have been re-enabled and that they have no further comments regarding the situation moving forward regarding this or any other security issue. The staff member originally speaking with Coin Fire has informed our team to speak with the administrators only moving forward and reiterated that the exchange has no comment.

In a surprise move, BTC-e has suspended withdrawals from the cryptocurrency exchange in an effort to stop coins from the Evolution theft being exchanged and withdrawn. BTC-e has long been known as a secretive exchange where the owners have never been publicly revealed and coins can be dumped with little oversight.

Coin Fire has learned from an employee at BTC-e via email that withdrawals have been suspended and placed in a manual processing mode. BTC-e staff members are currently evaluating transactions on the exchange platform to review for irregularities connected to the potential laundering of the stolen coins.

The exchange states that it has been in contact with the staff at several other exchanges in a concentrated effort to prevent the stolen coins from being used on a cryptocurrency exchange. A staff member told a Coin Fire contributor,

We are working to stop these coins from moving. If a user gets a PM asking them to perform a withdraw, please alert BTC-e immediately and decline the offer.

BTC-e believes that some users are being asked via private messages to withdraw coins in an effort to help launder the coins for those behind the theft.